PMC again starts amnesty scheme for tax defaulters

Those making a one-time settlement between October 5 to November 15 will get 75 per discount in penalty, while those paying the dues between November 16 to December 31 would get 50 per cent discount in penalty.

TO INCREASE its revenue collection, the Pune Municipal Corporation on Tuesday once again launched amnesty scheme for all property tax defaulters, including the properties with more than 25,000 Annual Ratable Value (ARV) which were not eligible in the previous scheme.

“The previous amnesty scheme had excluded the property tax defaulters having ARV of more than 25,000. However, this time all are eligible in the scheme which would be the last opportunity for defaulters to take benefit,” said Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar on Tuesday.

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Those making a one-time settlement between October 5 to November 15 will get 75 per discount in penalty, while those paying the dues between November 16 to December 31 would get 50 per cent discount in penalty.

Mr Kumar said the intention is to encourage the defaulters to join the league of regular tax payers. In the previous scheme in month of January to March end, he said 1,45,675 property tax defaulters took advantage of it and the civic body had a collection of Rs 387.49 crore.

Now, the pending property tax dues with the defaulters are to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore and the civic administration is eyeing as much recovery as possible from the scheme. The PMC had a revenue collection of Rs 1,184 crore from property tax in the last financial year and has set a target of Rs 1,600 crore for the current year.

PMC has also extended the deadline to December end for its ongoing scheme of declaring the unassessed properties to give the defaulters an opportunity to come in the tax ambit. Around 10,000 new properties have been added in the tax net through the scheme while the PMC has set a target of atleast 60,000 new properties to be added in the tax ambit.